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March 23, 2007

Do you believe that the secret to the "good life" is hard work? That in order to have the best life has to offer you have to first pay your dues?

There is a popular idea running around that we all have to go through a lot of bad things before we can experience the good things. And there seems to be a lot of evidence to support it. Just listen to people who have come through hard times and are now enjoying a better life. They will all tell you the story of the pain and suffering that they endured, and the sacrifices they made, on the long road to their prosperity. Some of them seem to wear their painful past like a badge of honor that says, "I earned my success."

The blessings of God are all about His promises and grace and are not about how hard we have worked, how much we've sacrificed, and how much pain we've endured in order to earn them. The bottom line is that we cannot earn God's grace. And since everything we have in life comes to us because His grace, it is all a gift.

March 02, 2007

From talk shows to forums on the Internet, everyone is talking about "The Secret". The main message of the movie is that a truth, the knowledge about a universal law, has been kept from the poor huddled masses. The main conspirators are rich and powerful business people and, of course, the church.

The writer of the Newsweek article on the movie says, "You'd think the last thing Americans need is more excuses for self-absorption and acquisitiveness." He places the movie in the general category of the kind of inspiration and motivation that has been preached by self-help gurus for years, but with an added stroke of marketing genius, combining the message with conspiracy theories similar to the Da Vinci Code.